A Just Farewell Read online

  “The boy’s name is Abraham, and he’s not even ten years old. Still, despite his youth, we’re confident that he will soon suffer the torments and pass through the trials that will show you the full measure of the tribes’ depravity. Spend the next month watching that boy through the eyes of our bug friends. See what that boy will become. Then cast your second vote regarding whether or not to execute the ultimate answer.”

  “Will you accept whatever vote I cast?”

  The general sighed. “I can’t promise that.”

  “You believe the threat to be so great that you would consider breaking your vows to the elected governors?”

  “I do.”

  “And there are no guarantees?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  The general handed the remote control to Governor Chen and said nothing more before standing and exiting the cinema to leave Kelly alone in the dark, with the view from a cockroach’s eyes glowing upon the silver screen upon which she preferred to watch colorful musicals and situational comedies from a civilized age lost so long ago. How could the tribes become so depraved, so savage and barbaric, to deserve such annihilation? How could their hate burn so hot that an entire world needed to be sacrificed in order to preserve the potential humanity hoped to discover in the waiting stars? Did the tribes’ children offer no hope? Would General Harrison conduct a military coupe if she refrained from approving the ultimate answer, and would such rebellion be any less dangerous than the threat posed by the tribes?

  Kelly Chen closed her eyes and wished it would all vanish. She had never dreamed her skill at growing tomatoes would ever force her to face the responsibility of such a decision.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 5 – Adultery Committed Against the Maker

  “All of you look wonderful. I pray my painting pleases our Maker.”

  Abraham smiled to watch his cockroach companions scurry along the oval racetrack he traced upon his chamber’s floor that morning with sugar water. He had painted all of the bugs’ shells in his patterns of stars, sunbursts and swirls, and those carapaces glimmered in his underground chamber’s dim lighting. With each bug sporting a different color and pattern scheme, Abraham soon chose favorites from his contestants. The cockroach whose shell he had painted blue and dotted with silver moons was the quickest of the bunch, but that bug seemed incapable of following the trail long enough to maintain any lead earned by its speed. A cockroach with a red shell sporting white diamonds followed the trail precisely, but that bug moved at a snail’s pace. The bug with the orange shell that Abraham decorated with black swirls soon became his favorite, for that cockroach moved with both precision and speed, so much so that Abraham wondered if that bug might’ve been especially blessed by the Maker.

  Abraham winced when the cleric’s great horn suddenly shrilled through the subterranean tunnels. The note was deep and low, and the longer it groaned, the more Abraham thought the blast of noise rose from the heart of the earth. The racing cockroaches tensed at the horn’s blare and then scattered for the corners of shadow, save for the bug with the orange shell decorated in swirls, who turned to peer towards Abraham.

  “Hurry into my palm, friend, before my brother and father burst into my chamber to see how I’ve wasted time painting bugs.”

  Abraham deposited the burrowing cockroach into a pocket sewn within his thin jacket and hurried towards his home’s ladder that led onto the surface. The clerics didn’t blare a celebratory horn as they had several nights before when the village men had gathered to witness the rockets exploding in the sky. They instead blew a low and somber note, one that growled that the clerics had pressing business regarding their community’s souls, one that promised the clerics would exercise little patience, or mercy, in waiting for their tribe to assemble at their tower. The terrible castles floated high overhead in their regular orbits, and they remained silent no matter the destruction of their rockets. All the same, Abraham shuddered to see how a shadow of one of the enormous castles swallowed his village before joining his father and brother.

  Abraham’s neighbor, Josef, brought his young, twin daughters, Alexis and Cassandra, onto the surface with him to answer the cleric’s summoning horn, and he led each of them by a rope leash he wrapped around each girl’s waist, tugging harshly at the ropes whenever either of the girls fell behind his pace or strayed too far from his heels. The girls had only recently turned seven, and Abraham realized it would not be so long until Josef could offer his daughters in marriage, not long until those girls’ faces would receive the first swirls of tattoos that would eventually expand to cover their faces entirely, not long at all until their hair would be treated until it turned the same silver as all the rest of the village women, or until they donned the dark, black glasses that would conceal the color of their eyes. Girls too young to undergo any of the ceremonies that would deliver them into womanhood were still permitted to climb out from their families’ holes without acquiring special privileges from the clerics.

  Abraham couldn’t determine if it was Alexis or Cassandra who waved at him, for the twins appeared identical to his eyes. But he tentatively waved back, and Ishmael immediately slapped him across the face.

  “How dare you brother?” Ishmael hissed. “You’re lucky Josef didn’t catch you staring at his daughters. He could petition the clerics to burn out one of your eyes for such a trespass.”

  Abraham mumbled as he rubbed his stinging cheek. “Why does he bring those daughters onto the surface if he’s so worried about someone peeking at them?”

  Rahbin glared at his youngest son. “Josef’s motivations are none of your concern, boy. Perhaps his wives suffer from a sickness that prevents them from watching after his girls, or perhaps his wives concentrate on working their looms. Or perhaps Josef wishes to show his girls to a family he wishes to offer them to in marriage. Do as the Maker teaches, Abraham, and murder your curiosity before it kills you. Would you wave if Josef pulled goats with his leashes?”

  “I would not.”

  “Then you will not wave at his daughters,” Rahbin retorted.

  As if the Maker sent it to show his pleasure, a breeze whistled across the barren landscape to bring a little relief from the hot sun, and the wind fluttered life into the five capes hung upon tall poles set before the clerics’ tower of scaffolding. The tribesmen who had sacrificed themselves to bring down the blasphemers’ rockets had left their capes behind before departing to achieve their glory and heaven. Abraham knew that the village’s best seamstresses and weavers had slept very little since that most recent victory against the unbelievers so that they completed sewing the symbols into those fluttering capes that told of the great explosions that brought the rockets burning back to the ground. Those capes would be proud heirlooms for the martyrs’ families to carry back with them into their subterranean homes. But the clerics would first let those capes flutter in the wind so that the harsh sun could deepen and bake the color of the stitching and fabric into a hue that pleased their divine creator.

  “The Maker is joyous,” Ishmael whispered as he watched those capes wave in the breeze. “It’s a great victory indeed when the clerics summon us twice for celebration.”

  Rahbin frowned at Ishmael. “Tell him, Abraham, how we know the clerics haven’t summoned us for rejoicing.”

  “Their horn didn’t sound a note for joy. They blew a note warning of transgression.”

  “Mind you of that, Ishmael, the next time you think of usurping your father’s duty by striking Abraham,” said Rahbin. “Abraham pays better attention to the horn than you.”

  The horn silenced before all of the tribesmen arrived at the tower, and those who were tardy stood apart from the rest to offer themselves to whatever punishment the clerics felt their tardiness deserved.

  The head cleric frowned atop the scaffold. “We disrespect our Maker when we hesitate to answer his call. Each of you will spend several hours this afternoon within the sunbox, where you will sweat out your sin and consid
er your shortcomings within the darkness.”

  “Praise be to the Maker!” The guilty men shouted.

  The head cleric continued. “I’ve been wondering who among our tribe remains worthy of the Maker’s kingdom and glory. Our best men have sacrificed themselves for the Maker’s glorious creation for so long that I wonder if those of us who are left are deserving of our God’s graces. Perhaps these capes fluttering in the wind were worn by the last of our great warriors. I pray that my doubts are only torments the great devil delivers me, for more than ever, we must be prepared to devote ourselves to the Maker. We will soon lift our battle against the blasphemers into the stars, and we will need all of the creator’s blessing to reach their high castles.”

  The gathering lifted their hands. “Praise be to the Maker!”

  The head cleric nodded. “Oh, my brothers and sons, the great devil will tempt us like never before. We cannot become soft. We must harden our souls for the battle awaiting us in the stars. The unbelievers will know no planet, no moon and no castle that will hide them from the Maker’s judgment or shield them from the justice we will administer as our Maker’s tools.

  “Understand then why we who grow beards must summon the tribe to inform our community that the great devil has infiltrated our homes so shortly after we celebrate a great victory. The great devil has already brought corruption to our tribe. One of us has created without the Maker’s breath.”

  Abraham’s heart raced, and the men surrounding him shifted and stared at their boots. The Holy Book taught that creation itself was the most magical of all the Maker’s powers. The Maker held the process of creation closest to his heart, and that the Maker guarded all his breath shaped as sacred. Thus the tribes created nothing casually. A man crafted neither a crib nor a coffin without first receiving a cleric’s blessing, and the most talented of weavers and seamstresses prayed for hours before sitting at her loom. Each bearded cleric fasted before picking up his pen to scribe new prayers, and none in the tribe dared to sing unless he or she was given a sign that the Maker’s breath filled his or her lungs. The Holy Book taught that every act of creation, no matter how large or small, was a divine process the required the Maker’s presence in any soul who strummed an instrument or stroked a brush. The Maker considered any creation undertaken without his blessing and permission as the most terrible of all blasphemies.

  Abraham trembled. His cockroach friend wiggled in his jacket pocket, and Abraham feared he might fidget or chuckle just as the clerics glowered from atop their scaffolding. Abraham didn’t dare lift his face, for he felt certain that the clerics were looking directly at him. He hadn’t prayed to the Maker before he had painted the shells of his cockroach friends. He had thought such artistry was below the Maker’s regard. Abraham choked as he felt his friend crawl to the cusp of his inner pocket. He didn’t dare reach into his jacket to remove his friend, lest his guilt of applying color to the creator’s creatures without first praying for the Maker’s permission become apparent.

  Several clerics sporting the short beards that marked them as the youngest of the religious leaders pushed a man and woman to the front of the scaffold. The clerics kicked several times at the man’s legs, and their captor fell face-first onto the ground as his bound wrists prevented him from bracing for impact. A woman dressed in the black robes and dark glasses worn by every woman of the tribe sobbed each time the man fell, and the clerics dragged her feet across the dirt each time she reached out to help the fallen man up from the ground. The relief Abraham felt when he saw it was not his crime that attracted the clerics’ attention shamed him, for his heart ached to watch that man stumble and that woman sob.

  The man stumbled closer to the clerics’ tower, and Abraham recognized him as Paul, the tribe’s butcher. Abraham had recently accompanied his father on one of Rahbin’s trips to Pauls’ shop to deliver a goat so that it could be butchered and dressed for a family meal in celebration of Ishmael’s passage into manhood. The cool air of Paul’s home, where the carcasses of so many village animals hung from the earthen ceiling, had amazed Abraham, and he had thought that Paul must’ve been especially blessed by the Maker if the divine creator gifted him with such breezes to flow through his underground shop to help preserve the animal meat Paul had not yet salted. Thus Abraham felt puzzled as the clerics shoved Paul and his wife closer to the tower, for he couldn’t understand why the butcher would offend the Maker who so blessed his home and his profession.

  The head cleric frowned at the man and woman dragged before him. “Neighbors, it hurts our hearts to have reason to present Paul and Sarah to you as blasphemers. We have discovered that Paul writes poetry intended to make love to Sarah, and thus he commits two terrible affronts to our Maker. Let us remember that Sarah is wed to the Maker, and that Paul is only a vessel our great creator possesses whenever he chooses to plant life within Sarah’s womb. Paul sought none of our clerics’ blessing when he composed his verse, and so his words express his lust for Sarah rather than the Maker’s love. Paul’s creation angers the Maker, and his poems symbolize the adultery Paul and Sarah regularly, and knowingly, committed against our creator. Paul, do you deny writing such words?”

  One of the young clerics slapped Paul across the face when the accused didn’t instantly answer. Stunned, the accused butcher shook his head.

  The high cleric sighed. “And Sarah, do you deny taking pleasure from Paul’s tainted creation? Do you deny breaking your sacred wedding vow to your Maker and taking pleasure from Paul’s touch?”

  The woman sobbed and shook her head.

  The high cleric nodded. “Paul and Sarah, your selfishness has invited the great devil into our tribe at a time when we must strengthen ourselves to carry our fight against the unbelievers into the purgatory between our Earth and the Maker’s heaven. You commit such affronts in a time when we cannot afford mercy.”

  Abraham gasped when the largest of the clerics surrounding Paul and Sarah withdrew a long, curved knife from his tunic. He knew immediately how the clerics planned to punish Paul, and Abraham attempted to turn away. But his brother Ishmael gripped his shoulders, and his father Rahbin grabbed Abraham’s chin so that his youngest boy could not turn away his gaze.

  “You will not close you eyes, boy.” Rahbin whispered. “You will soon turn from a boy into a man, and you can no longer close your eyes to the Maker’s justice.”

  Abraham’s knees trembled. He didn’t struggle against his brother and father’s grip, knowing such a fight would be vain, and that such a fight would only guarantee him a beating once he returned to his family’s underground home. Thoughts surged through his mind before the cleric plunged the blade into Paul’s neck. Abraham remembered all the times Paul had waved at him upon the surface, and Abraham recalled the occasions he had watched Paul’s hands skillfully clean the animals the village brought to his shop. Who would take Paul’s place as butcher within the tribe? How long would the village have to forage throughout the ruins of the unbelievers’ city to find the foodstuffs to replace the meat that would be lost without a working butcher shop? What would happen to Paul and Sarah’s children? Hadn’t one of Paul’s cousins been among the martyrs who pulled the rockets out of the sky, and didn’t that association merit that Paul and Sarah receive a little compassion?

  Abraham felt sick the moment the knife ripped into Paul’s neck. The blood, the gore and the gurgle shattered some vital piece of Abraham’s soul. He whimpered at the grizzly sight of the cleric cutting through the butcher’s spine and sawing that blade through his victim’s neck. He whimpered, but his brother dug his fingers deeper into Abraham’s shoulder as his younger brother’s body turned soft. Abraham pulled against his father’s grasp, but Rahbin’s hands squeezed his boy’s face like a vice and forced Abraham to stare at the severed, bleeding head the cleric held high for the crowd’s consideration. Abraham’s heart screamed to see how the butcher’s open eyes stared at him.

  “Praise be to the Maker!” The high cleric spoke.

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nbsp; “Praise be to the Maker!” The crowd chanted.

  The high cleric didn’t need to explain the punishment Sarah would pay for the adultery she had committed against the Maker with Paul. The clerics lifted her from the ground after she knelt, and wailed, at the butcher’s headless corpse, and they struck her with their fists until she shambled towards the edge of the village, her hands lifted to protect her face from the blows dealt by her captors. The first of the stone struck her the moment she stepped beyond the unmarked boundaries of her community. Others immediately followed while the woman’s hands gripped her dark glasses and pressed them to her face so that none of the rocks that cut and bruised at her face could reveal the color of her eyes.